Learnings from Learning How to Learn, L^3 or Learning (Recursive), or Whatever Your Fancy

At a meeting at my daughter’s school, parents were told that gifted children’s largest challenge is learning how to learn, as typically subjects in earlier grades came easily to them, and such may not be the case in high school and beyond. In the last year of my doctoral degree, I thought I should just brush up on a few things to help my daughters – little did I know that this Coursera course would be so helpful for me!

Our thinking – the learning brain

For those who are aware of different cognitive states of Type I/Type II thinking or fast/slow brain, this is a related concept.  When deeply concentrating on something, we are in the Focussed mode.  This mode helps enforce thoughts in neural networks.  These neural networks may associate different concepts together to enable a complex thought to be recalled more easily – this is called a chunk.  In fact, engaging in this type of high intensity thinking can help build new myelin sheath (the coating of neurons), which can help facilitate thinking.  All this gives rise to the new adage: Practice makes permanent.

However, this above describes but one mode of thinking.  The diffuse mode is when we need to think new thoughts, to figure out a new pattern.  This mode is often entered when not in the focussed mode – when daydreaming, almost drifting off to sleep, even when going for a walk.  The well-known Eureka moment often follows a period of diffuse mode thinking. 

Other related concepts deal with memory.  Our working memory, in which we do our focussed mode work – is likened to a small, poor quality blackboard.  That is, there are essentially 4 spaces in our working memories, and if not reinforced by practice, the thoughts in the working memories can become easily erased.  Contrast this with our long term memory, likened to a storage warehouse.  The more retrieved something is, the easier it will be to find – but the less something is retrieved, to more likely it will get lost behind other more frequently retrieved “boxes”.

All of the above hinges upon sleep – while sleeping, brain cells shrink and allow the cerebral spinal fluid to wash out the toxins produced over a day’s worth of thinking, and this cerebral bath is critical in allowing the brain to function at its maximum.

This course went through a number of tips and tricks – I will focus only on two main themes, and hopefully highlight a number of helpful nuggets as I do so.  My scaffold is the trustworthy 5Ws and 1H.  The overarching theme is process over product – the mechanics of learning is highly valued, and transferrable.

Theme 1: Chunking

5 W and 1H	Concept	Tools	Caveats
Who	You – individually	-          Ensure some solitary study time	-          Studying with friends can be tricky if trying to form chunks
What	Practice while in the focussed mode	-          Recall -          Self-testing -          Actively doing problems -          Forming wildly visual memory palaces, acronyms and mnemonics	-          Only reading and excessive highlighting -          Reading solutions to worked out problems -          Rote memorization
Where	Disassociating learning from environment	-          Minimal distraction (e.g. noise cancelling headphones) -          Have multiple learning environments (e.g. home, library, study hall)	-          Having one place only where studying is done (risking the surroundings forming part of the chunk)
When	Building the scaffold of the chunk	-          Segment the learning over time  at peak performance times (when one is best able to enter the focussed mode – mid-morning for many people)	-          Learning a concept in only one blitz study session -          Pulling all nighters
Why	To form solid chunks of complex concepts that become intrinsic knowledge	-          Valuing the study process, not only the product of studying -          Practice begets better performance	-          Sacrificing understanding during studying
How	Forming a chunk and allowing connections between chunks	-          Interleaving: forcing a non-sequential, non-linear approach to learning (do a few questions on one subject, followed by the same in another, etc.), which also enhances transferability between disciplines -          Pomodoro : a timer that forces 25 mins of focussed time with progressively longer breaks to enable both rewards and entering the diffuse mode	-         Einstellung: the fixation on a certain thought pattern to the exclusion of different thought patterns.  A VERY IMPORTANT CONCEPT – has been known as anchoring, and is related to confirmation bias.  Very easy trap to fall in – must be aware of this state.

 

Theme 2: Procrastination

5Ws and 1H	Concept	Tools	Caveats
Who	You	-          Perhaps having a friend to keep you accountable	-          Friends serving as a reason to procrastinate
What	Getting undesirable work done	-          To Do Lists, interleaving process and product tasks -          Do the least enjoyable task first -          Planning many mini rewards for keeping to mini tasks	-          The temptation to not practice delayed gratification is strong, must have enough mini rewards to help justify the plan
Where	Environment can strongly influence procrastination	-          Minimize distractions; ensure study are is set for studying -          Be aware of your attention level	-          Household chores are most alluring when procrastinating
When	Ensuring a planned time to work  on the unpleasant task	-          Write To Do list night before, to allow diffuse mode during sleep to help make connections	-          Assume that you’ll get it done “when you have time”, putting off the hard, unpleasant tasks
Why	To not engage in the small rewards of procrastination, and focus on the larger rewards of learning. Deep learning can be very rewarding- the flow of working can be enjoyable	-          Try to form habits conducing to good studying, and to substitute the rewards of procrastination with delayed gratification (post working) rewards	-          Putting off the unpleasant or hard tasks can be temporarily rewarded by doing something more enjoyable, but the price for procrastinating is high
How	Ensuring the place, time and mindset are available for learning	-          Using a Pomodoro timer to alternate between focussed mode and diffuse mode – have planned rewards for the progressively elongating breaks -          Engage in Ulysses Contracts – deny the possibility to engage in procrastinatory behaviour (e.g. don’t bring the smartphone to study sessions) -          Acknowledge procrastination cues (e.g. write them down), and study on	-          Depending on willpower, a resource intensive activity, will occupy parts of your working memory that can crowd out learning

 

Other important concepts, ranging from the state of the art understanding of the hippocampus, how best to take a test (hard start, jump to easy; review test backwards) to stress relieving diaphragmatic breathing were also in this course.  I can’t hope to cover everything – but hopefully the above can give you some insights on Learning How to Learn!

Thanks Dr. Barb Oakley!

Happy learning!